Your one-stop shop for all things Latin/Hispanic/Mexican
Dear Dominique Ansel and Alex Stupak,
I seriously think you guys are lovely and all, but can you please — PLEEEEASE — not call your “swirl of roasted corn caramel, lime zest, sea salt, and smokey salsa verde on the side” concoction an ice-cream taco?
See? I’m getting old and can die from a heart attack real soon.
Thank you in advance for your cooperation
Hat tip: Ridiculous NYC food correspondent Lisa Paravano
My country is the bestest…
On Friday night, after rumors that El Chapo Guzmán had escaped from a Mexican prison for the third time began appearing on social media, Mexico’s Secretary of the Interior, Miguel Osorio Chong, posted the above photo, with one simple message: “For the rumors, an image…”
Osorio Chong’s tweet was not only liked and retweeted by thousands of tuiteros, but it proved — once again — that Mexico is home of the surreal and the truly hilarious.
Wanna see the memes about this photo? Check back soon. This blogger is too busy planning her summer vacation working
Para los rumores, una imagen… pic.twitter.com/REgkwIlMuJ
— Miguel A.OsorioChong (@osoriochong) 9 de julio de 2016
OK, you know the drill. No matter how tragic a situation will get, Mexicans will always see the funny side of the whole thing.
And the avocado shortage of late is no exception.
In case you have no idea what’s going on, prices of avocado have risen by more than 90 percent since the end of 2015, mostly because Mexico’s biggest ever harvest is coming to an end and a new one is not yet ready. On top of that, the shortage has coincided with a sharp fall in U.S. production caused by heatwave in California, hitting the the Fourth of July weekend, the second largest avocado consumption event of the year in the U.S. after the Super Bowl.
You might think an avocado shortage in a place like Mexico would be no laughing matter, but then again, you do not know Mexicans.
Here are some of my faves, explained for the monolingual crowd.
GET ONE KILO OF AVOCADO: SIX MONTHS WITHOUT INTEREST
2. WHEN YOU WANT AVOCADO IN YOUR TORTA, BUT YOU ARE POOR
3. SHOULD I BUY A KILO OF AVOCADO OR AN IPHONE 6?
JUST THROW SOME EXTRA AVOCADO TO THE AVOCADOS
CARLOS SLIM LOSES HALF HIS FORTUNE AFTER ORDERING ENCHILADAS WITH EXTRA AVOCADO
MARRY ME; I’M LOADED
A reporter in Mexico went to cover massive floods happening in Puebla, and was caught by another reporter being carried by the locals, obviously in an effort to, well, not get wet.
The original tweet (below) from reporter José Daniel Hernández simply read: “How embarrassing! @LydiaCumming, a reporter with @TVAztecaPuebla asks for help in order not to get wet.”
¡Vergonzoso! @LydiaCumming , reportera de @TVAztecaPuebla , pide que la carguen para no mojarse. #LadyReportera pic.twitter.com/RVPhevxs2A
— José Daniel Hdez (@jodherlo) 27 de junio de 2016
What followed, naturally, was a flood of tweets that have this blogger dying of laughter. Below some of my favorites. (Apologies in advance if I do not credit each one of these properly, but Twitter can be a free-for-all stealing thing.)
#SharkAttack
AT THE THREE AMIGOS SUMMIT
JUST LIKE RONALDO
L RING
VAMPIPE, OF COURSE
#LadyReportera le gana en una carrera a Peña Nieto en Canadá. pic.twitter.com/6O3RmhK8IR
— Vampipe ⍨ (@vampipe) 28 de junio de 2016
360fly Inc. has decided to launch a “provocative” ad campaign to pitch a camera that promises to give you a broader perspective of life.
To that end the company crafted what it’s supposed to be a satire of Donald Trump and his anti-Mexican discourse, speaking about his HUGE — yuge! — wall only to be interrupted by a bunch of Mexicans (mariachis, gardeners, maids and churro vendors) sneaking through the wall –aided by Clinton and Sanders.
Per a company press release:
The campaign strategically leverages the national and global interest in the 2016 presidential campaign, with a hysterical satire of Donald Trump’s “Border Wall” campaign initiative, complete with a Trump impersonator, Hillary and Bernie look-a-likes, Mexican Mariachi bands, housemaids, gardeners and even churro cart vendors. That’s right…churro cart vendors.
Yeah, churro cart vendors.
The company claims the spot is “so controversial” it has been refused by a bunch of networks, mostly because stations said they wanted to “remain politically neutral” and “didn’t want to offend certain ethnic groups.”
As a member of one of the “ethnic groups” portrayed in this thing (watch below), I don’t find the commercial particularly offensive. However, I do find it a bit dull and that, my friends, offends me more deeply.
WATCH and decide for yourself:
Via: CNET en Español
Got $28 and a penchant for eating tacos and drinking tequila while on a cruise ship?
If so, head to New York City on July 9 for the T&T, a “Floating Food Festival” where you’ll be treated with, well, tacos, tequila and — very likely — a violent sea sickness.
VIP admission is $45 but it might be worth it because you’ll get a free “MARGARTIA,” [SIC] which I assume is something better than a MARGARITA.
¡Ay, Dios mío!
Via: Time Out
I can only hope Fiesta Inn Hotels in Guadalajara, Mexico pays its employees well enough to go Google Translate stuff. For the gringos, you know?
Hat tip: Roberto Morán
The rumors were true — and the wait is over.
Soraya Montenegro, the evil stepmother of Mexican telenovela María la del Barrio, has finally ended up where she belongs: In prison.
More specifically, Litchfield Penitentiary.
¡Sí, señor! Montenegro (played many years ago by the great Itatí Cantoral) is the star of a new Netflix campaign to promote the fourth season of Orange Is the New Black in Latin America.
So far so good, but Netflix would be well advised to extend a big GRACIAS to Cristian Vazquez, an 18-year-old from Danbury, Connecticut, who is credited with catapulting Soraya to viral fame by posting screenshots and videos of her on his Tumblr page.
“I first saw a picture with the same caption of another actress, Victoria Ruffo, and then thought it would be funny to do the same,” Vazquez told the Daily Dot. “After posting the first photo of Soraya Crying in Spanish it became very popular because of a video of her acting in the telenovela Maria La Del Barrio, in which she, the villain, tries to kill three people. The majority of the people on Tumblr have never seen a telenovela and are not familiar with the exaggerated acting style, and so they found it hilarious.”
Yes, Soraya is awesome and Netflix’ promo video is hilarious. Watch it below but — more importantly — don’t forget to thank Cristian Vazquez.
Don’t go on reading if you think I have the answer to the above question, but it’s one that is being asked more and more these days, especially after a deranged individual stormed a gay bar in Orlando, Florida, killing dozens of people and earning the “honor” of having committed this country’s deadliest mass shooting to date.
Unless you live under a rock or — what’s more likely — don’t follow fútbol mexicano, Mexican soccer fans for years have popularized a simple chant to address goalies. It goes like this: “Ehhhhhhhh, puto!”.
Puto, in a nutshell, can be translated as “fag” and it’s used because in Spanish, to score a goal is to “put [the ball] in” as in meterla (PUT IT IN), get it? Put “it” in.
Per a 2014 story on Vice.com:
[The phrase] was first used by rowdy fans during soccer games in Guadalajara in 2004 —including an Olympics qualifying match against the US, Mexico’s bitter soccer rival, and from there it spread throughout Mexico’s professional soccer league.
It is true that the phrase came across as particularly insensitive Monday night, during a Copa America match between Mexico and Venezuela.
As a writer from The Guardian pointed out this week, the chant’s effect “was all the more jarring after a minute’s silence had been held in the stadium for the victims of the [Orlando] tragedy.”
Upon reading The Guardian story, I texted a [Mexican] friend, in Mexico, and told him: “I feel torn about the puto chant. Personally, I think it’s not the same to chant puto and then go on your way without hurting a fly, than buying a AR-15 automatic rifle and plenty of ammunition, and then go kill 50 people….without uttering the word PUTO even once.”
My friend feels the same way as I do, but perhaps that’s also because, like me, he is also Mexico born and has never lived in PC-USA.
We were both pretty sure that Omar Mateen did not yell “Ehhhhh, PUTOS” when he was doing his bloody business inside the Pulse Nightclub Saturday night. But perhaps the idea of “a bunch of faggots having a good time” was ringing in his head throughout the whole thing in some shape or form. Who the heck cares if he uttered any word or not?
As a Mexican, born in Mexico and accustomed to macho culture & language, but yet raised in a household that was always tolerant to people who were “different” from us, I’ve always deemed the “Ehhhhh, puto” chant as totally harmless.
Now, after 15 years plus living in this country, I’m not so sure.
Help me understand, please. Comments, as usual, are more than welcome, below.
Let other countries use graphic images of low-weight babies, cancerous lungs or people exhaling smoke through a tracheotomy opening to show the perils of smokers. The Mexican government has decided to go a slightly different way.
Mexico’s health authorities decided to bring back the image of a dead rat covering the top half of cigarette packages. The reason? It is the one image that — according to a survey among Mexican smokers — will be more likely to help them quit.
Yeah, right.
Mexico’s health authorities are so naive they fail to see smokers were just screwing with their heads.
This woman not only became an Internet star overnight; she has — deservedly — become this blogger’s personal favorite Mexican ever.
Ever.
INSTRUCTIONS: 1. Watch the video below. 2. Hug a Mexican. 3. Repeat. (For the monolingual crowd: scroll down for an English-language transcript of the dialogue.) Read and HUG A MEXICAN.
— M’am, how much are the empanadas?
— 10 pesos
— Can I buy them all?
— No, I can’t do that. I just left my house
— Well, sell them all to me. I want them all
— I can’t do that. Please understand.
— I want them all. I’ll pay 12 pesos each
— They cost 10!
— But I’ll give you 12!
— No. That would cost you a lot of money. I have about 40 or 35. I can sell you some, 10 or maybe 15… As many as you want, except all of them
— OK then
— OK
Move over, cocaine-filled tamales. The new wave for smuggling drugs from Mexico into the U.S. consists of stuffing up burritos with methamphetamine.
Customs and Border Protection officers this week said they arrested four Mexican nationals and two Arizona women, during separate weekend smuggling attempts at the Port of Nogales.
In one of those instances, says the U.S. Customs and Border Protection:
A narcotics-detecting canine alerted officers to the presence of drugs and a search determined the woman was carrying more than a pound of methamphetamine in two packages that had been wrapped in tortilla shells to make them look like burritos.
As a proud chilanga who does not eat (and will never eat) a burrito, I can only cheer Customs officials for the feat, and remind my faithful followers of one important fact: Nothing good has ever come out of a burrito.
Hat tip: @lechancle
The food is not as awesome as the name, but it’s OK.
Photo: Laura Martínez, 2016, Harlem
On the heels of the now infamous Taco-Bowl Trump brouhaha, the Mexican Government has decided to address the insult by going into full-on diplomacy mode and doing what it does best: Investing a ton of money on a three-minute video about … tacos.
Because… Mexico.
Filing this under #Diplomacy #Politics #Tacos and #StupidPropositions
This blogger has been super busy with tons of parties work taking place this week, so it’s always good to keep getting tips from my dozens millions of indefatigable followers.
So, without further ado, I give you Me faltó decirle, a brand new music video by Conjunto Amanecer featuring JEAN FENN and KATY DE LA TORRE, friends of the one and only Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán.
¡Bravo, bravo!
Hat tip: @tropicarlitos
